Aerial view of the Shoreline Apartments under construction, early 1970s. Photographer unknown.
© The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.
Courtesy of the Paul Marvin Rudolph archive, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
El Museo is pleased to present Remembering Shoreline, a public symposium held in conjunction with our Shoreline exhibition. This two-day event brings together architects, planners, researchers, and activists from Buffalo and beyond to take a closer look at the history of the Shoreline Apartments, and discuss Paul Rudolph, Brutalism, urban renewal, housing, and preservation.
The symposium will include presentations and panel discussions on topics such as: Paul Rudolph’s architectural ideas and design legacy; Brutalism and “Heroic” architecture; the histories of urban renewal and planning; historic preservation efforts surrounding these sites and structures; and the past, present, and future of housing movements in the United States.
This event is free and open to the public.
Space is limited; registration is highly recommended.
Day 1: Paul Rudolph and Brutalism
Friday, October 25, 1:00–4:30pm
Niagara Falls Public Library (Earl W. Brydges Building)
1425 Main St, Niagara Falls, NY 14305
Day 1 takes place at the iconic Earl W. Brydges Library in Niagara Falls designed by Paul Rudolph. There will be an opening lecture on the architecture of Paul Rudolph by Kelvin Dickinson, followed by a panel presentation and discussion on Brutalism with Chris Grimley, Michael McClelland, and Kate Wagner.
Day 2: Urban Renewal, Housing, and Preservation
Saturday, October 26, 11:00am–5:30pm
Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library
1324 Jefferson Ave, Buffalo, NY 14208
Day 2 takes place at the Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library, designed by Buffalo’s most significant black architect Robert Traynham Coles. This day includes panel presentations and discussions on urban renewal, housing, and preservation with Aaron Bartley, Mark Byrnes, Charles Davis II, Jessie Fisher, Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Gail Radford, Susanne Schindler, and Henry Louis Taylor, Jr.
The symposium has been approved by the AIA for a total of 10 HSW credits: 4 credits for Part 1 (Friday) and 6 credits for Part 2 (Saturday). Registration for each day is separate. Credit(s) earned on completion of this symposium will be reported to AIA CES for AIA members. Certificates of Completion for both AIA members and non-AIA members are available upon request.
Panelists
Aaron Bartley is a Visiting Scholar at Cornell ILR. He is the Co-Founder and former Executive Director of People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH Buffalo), an organization which mobilizes residents to create sustainable neighborhoods with quality affordable housing, green jobs and next generation infrastructure. PUSH’s Green Development Zone, which combines green housing, job training, stormwater management and urban agriculture in a district on Buffalo’s West Side, was named the winner of the global Sustainable Housing competition sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Brazilian Ministry of Cities and HUD. Aaron grew up in Buffalo and attended Buffalo Public Schools. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, where he co-founded the Harvard Living Wage Campaign, resulting in $10 million in annual wage and benefit increases for the low-income campus workers it represented.
Mark Byrnes is a former senior associate editor at CityLab where he covered postwar design stories, particularly in the Northeast U.S. While there, he wrote about the legacy of Ed Logue and Paul Rudolph in New York and New England. He is currently a digital editor at the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and a graduate of the University at Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning.
Barbara Campagna FAIA, LEED AP BD+C is an architect, planner and historian – reinventing and restoring historic and existing buildings. The recipient of the 2002 National AIA Young Architect of the Year Award, she was elevated to Fellowship in the AIA in 2009 as “the leading national architect and policymaker for the integration of preservation values into green building practices.” She was the Chair of the APT 2018 50th Anniversary Conference in Buffalo and was the APT President from 2005-2007.
Barbara has completed the restorations of some of the most significant National Historic Landmarks in the country and is a recognized leader in the preservation and modernization of modern heritage. She served as the Regional Preservation Officer for the Northwest Region of the General Services Administration and from 2006-2011 was the Chief Architect for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Barbara’s firm, BAC/A+P, occupies a unique niche in both the historic preservation and green building fields. She is known for her work and writings on the advocacy of Brutalist era buildings. She is the Co-Curator of the Shoreline Exhibit and Co-Chair of this Symposium.
Charles L. Davis II is an assistant professor of architectural history and criticism at the University at Buffalo. He received his PhD in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and has an M.Arch and B.P.S. from the University at Buffalo. His academic research examines the integrations of race and style theory in modern architectural debates from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. His book manuscript, Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style will appear in the Culture, Politics and the Built Environment series of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Kelvin Dickinson is the President of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. A graduate of the College of Design, Architecture, Art & Planning at the University of Cincinnati, he was introduced to Mr. Rudolph’s work by Peter Eisenman. He joined the Paul Rudolph Foundation in 2006, where he was Co-Director from 2009-2010. Later, Kelvin left to assist in the opening of an architectural office in Doha, Qatar. In 2012 he joined Aljazeera Media Network’s Projects Division at their Doha Headquarters. After successfully launching the network’s new Arabic newsroom and program studio, he returned to New York and joined the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. He became the President of the foundation in May 2017 and joined the organization full-time in January 2019.
Jessie Fisher is the Executive Director of Preservation Buffalo Niagara. An Urban Planner with a Master’s degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, Jessie has worked as an historic preservation and neighborhood planning consultant, owned and developed at-risk and abandoned buildings, and served as the Director of Planning at Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. These experiences have combined to give her a unique sense of how promoting our region’s heritage can unlock a brighter, more equitable, more sustainable future.
Rahwa Ghirmatzion is the Executive Director of People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH Buffalo). She oversees PUSH Buffalo’s growing operations, including housing construction, weatherization, solar installation, job training, and a youth center on Grant Street, as well as outreach and advocacy on public policy issues facing urban communities. PUSH employs 40 people and has renovated more than one hundred high quality homes over the past ten years. Rahwa was born in Asmera, Eritrea in the middle of a civil war. She came to Western New York as a refugee at the age of eight with her family, after living in Sudan. She was educated in Buffalo Public Schools and is a graduate of the University at Buffalo.
Chris Grimley is a co-founder of OverUnder and has broad experience in architecture, graphic design, and interior design. He has organized, designed, and implemented experiential environments, interiors, master plans, and branding initiatives for clients ranging from small offices to large institutions.
Chris is currently leading OverUnder’s ArtFarm cultural center for the City of Somerville, and is leading teams developing interpretive sinage and wayfinding for Boston’s City Hall and Harvard University. He is coauthor of Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston (2015), Imagining the Modern: Architecture and Urbanism of the Pittsburgh Renaissance (2018) and the designer and editor of Henry N. Cobb: Words and Works 1948–2018 (2018). His work has been recognized by the AIGA, SEGD, DesignObserver, docomomo, the Boston Preservation Alliance and the Boston Society of Architects.
Michael McClelland OAA CAHP FRAIC is a registered architect and founding Principal of ERA Architects. A Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, he has specialized in heritage conservation, heritage planning, and urban design for over 25 years. Having begun his career in municipal government, most notably for the Toronto Historical Board, Michael continues to work with a wide range of public and private stakeholders to build culture through thoughtful, values-based heritage planning and design. Well known for his contribution to the discourse surrounding heritage architecture and landscape architecture in Canada, Michael speaks regularly in the media and at public and professional events, has published numerous articles and edited several books, and has received numerous awards and honors.
Gail Radford is a professor of history at the University at Buffalo. She received her PhD from Columbia University, and has been awarded fellowships from the NEH, ACLS, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2018, she received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has published two books, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era and The Rise of the Public Authority: Statebuilding and Economic Development in Twentieth-Century America. Currently she is researching administrative reforms in 19th century New York State aimed at increasing grassroots participation in public education.
Susanne Schindler is an architect and historian interested in how policy, finance, and design intersect in housing. Her particular focus is on the afterlives of the federal, state, and local housing experiments of the late-1960s and early 1970s, including the Model Cities program. From 2013 to 2016, Susanne was lead researcher and co-curator of the project House Housing: An Untimely History of Architecture and Real Estate at Columbia’s Buell Center. She is currently a visiting lecturer at MIT and co-directs the MAS program in history and theory of architecture at ETH Zurich.
Henry Louis Taylor, Jr., Ph.D. is a professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo and founding Director of the Center for Urban Studies. Taylor has written five books, along with dozens of articles and technical reports, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2018 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award from the Urban Affairs Association. He is completing a book, From Harlem to Havana: the Nehanda Isoke Abiodun Story (SUNY Press).
Kate Wagner is an architecture and cultural critic based in Washington, DC. She is the creator of the blog McMansion Hell, which examines the phenomenon that is the McMansion and uses it as a tool for architectural education and humorous cultural remarks. Kate has written about architecture, design, and culture for numerous publications including The Baffler, The Atlantic, CityLab, and The Nation and is an opinion columnist at Curbed.
Remembering Shoreline is organized by Bryan Lee and Barbara Campagna. This event is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
